


See Things Underground

by Aspareme



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ackerfam, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9060088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspareme/pseuds/Aspareme
Summary: Kuchel wonders if she’s making a mistake in doing this, in bringing an innocent into the Underground. But she’s weak, and she’s aching for something, someone, to love. Now she feels something fragile stir inside her, and it feels like resolve. She’s got to be strong for him. She’s all he has. She doesn’t know his father—long since lost to obscurity—but she knows her son. She knows his little nose, and she knows the sweet tuft of dark hair, and she knows the little sleepy frown that flits over his face when he’s ready for bed.She knows her son, and her heart aches with love for him.





	1. Chapter 1

_Fear has many eyes, and can see underground._  
-Miguel de Cervantes

 

It’s not the life little girls dream of, but she does what she must. 

 

Kuchel wonders if she’s making a mistake in doing this, in bringing an innocent into the Underground. But she’s weak, and she’s aching for something, someone, to love. Now she feels something fragile stir inside her, and it feels like resolve. She’s got to be strong for him. She’s all he has. She doesn’t know his father—long since lost to obscurity—but she knows her son. She knows his little hands, and she knows the sweet tuft of dark hair, and she knows the little sleepy frown that flits over his mouth when he’s ready for bed. 

 

She knows her son, and her heart aches with love.

 

Levi is a strange baby, she thinks. He doesn’t squall and rarely cries, just observes the world through solemn eyes. He doesn’t laugh often or easily, but when he does it’s the sweetest sound she’s ever heard. Kuchel knows she should be grateful, but mostly she’s just scared shitless. What business does a whore have with a baby? He could be hurting or damaged and how would she ever know? 

 

It’s not like she could ever afford a doctor; not that she’d ever trust one down here. 

 

She doesn’t want anyone knowing about Levi, not now. Not yet. He’s just a little boy, but she knows the sort of people that end up buried alive down here, and she doesn’t trust them with her beautiful boy. If she’s lucky, she can hide him until he’s old enough to fight back.

 

“No one’s ever going to hurt you, love”, she croons to the downy hair on the crown of his head. “I promise.” She rocks him as Levi watches her with those big eyes of his, and gives her finger a gentle squeeze. Her heart shatters into a million sparkling pieces, and God, how she grieves for him.

 

Levi is six when Kuchel’s luck runs out.

 

One of her special friends has come by and he’s in an especially foul mood. The man’s an officer in the Military Police, and as close to a regular as she’s got; even so, she sends Levi on up to the roof, safely out of harm’s way. Still, all it takes is one ringing slap and one too-loud cry and down he comes. She watches with creeping horror as Levi shimmies down the wall and through the window. 

 

“The fuck is that?”, the officer asks, jerking his chin at her son. Kuchel freezes at the tone in his voice, hungry and angry by turns. 

 

“Don’t you touch her”, Levi grinds out, and Kuchel’s stomach plummets. “What did you say?”, the man growls, and dread forms a hard ball in her gut. She could retch, but instead strives for calm. “Libeling”, Kuchel tries, the endearment cold as grave dirt on her tongue, but Levi ignores her. His little hands are curled into fists and his eyes are hard as the rocks that surround them. He’s so brave, her solemn little boy. “I said”, Levi repeats, voice grim, “don’t you touch her.” 

 

Kuchel would be achingly proud if she weren’t so frightened. “Please”, she says to the man, and steps between the two of them. “He’s just a little boy. Sweetheart, go on and play outside like I said. _Please_.” Levi does not move, but the man does, shoving her to the floor and grabbing her son by the wrist. Levi doesn’t make a sound, and neither does Kuchel. Her heart is clogging her throat, and her hands shake with fear and impotent rage. 

 

“Don’t touch her?” The man scoffs and hauls Levi closer. “All right”, he says. “I won’t." Suddenly there’s a rough hand in his hair, and her sweet boy is falling, being _forced_ , to his knees. She catches sight of his face, of the blank eyes and the limp muscles, of the resignation. She knows that look intimately, and it was never meant to live on her son’s face.

 

The world narrows down with a razor-focus that hums like a live wire. Kuchel sees red.

 

The rest she remembers in sharp flashes. The way his flesh feels under her nails, the way he scrabbles weakly at her hands around his throat. She remembers the way the buckles of his maneuver gear clink cheerfully with the final, pathetic twitches of his legs. She feels nothing but vindication when he shits himself as he dies; he put his dirty hands on her son. He doesn’t deserve the dignity of a clean death.

 

“Are you alright?”, Kuchel asks once it’s done, voice unnervingly calm even to her own ears. Levi’s eyes trace over her face. She can tell there’s a bruise blooming on her cheek, and she can taste blood from a split lip. He nods. It’s enough. 

 

“That’s my good boy. Levi, sweetheart, I need you to be Ma’s helper right now. Can you do that for me?” He nods again and she nearly wilts with relief. Her solemn, steady boy. How she loves him, what she would do to save him. She can’t—won’t—leave him. “Can you go get that sheet from the bed, little man?” He does as she asks, fetching her tatty bedsheet. She drapes it over the corpse, hiding it from sight. It doesn’t make it any better, but she won’t expose Levi to more of the Underground’s ugliness than she needs to. “Levi, we’re going on a very big adventure, but I need you to help me pack. Can you do that?” He nods, and she sighs to watch him trot off to the box that houses all his worldly possessions. She opens her valise and he fits his few belongings in neatly while she strips the leather straps and the gear from the dead man. She steals his clothes for good measure, changing into it quickly and buckling the gear over the uniform just in case. She’s never used it before in her life, but the thrum of power still heavy in her veins tells her it won’t be an issue. She doesn’t need to fly to kill, and Kuchel is no innocent. If anyone tries to take her son from her, she’ll end them. She knows she can now, though she still isn’t sure how or why. 

 

“I’m done, Ma”, Levi tells her quietly, and she nods. There hadn’t been much to pack; everything worth taking fits into a small case. Time was she’d grieve that fact, but she’s the calm eye of the hurricane now, and all their meagre existence means is an easier escape.

 

She knows her friend won’t be missed immediately, but he will be missed eventually, and she doesn’t want to be here when his squad shows up looking for him. Running from the law isn’t a good example to set for her son, but it can’t be helped. She made a promise, and she intends to keep it. 

 

She won’t let anyone hurt Levi, not _ever_. 

 

Kuchel grips Levi’s hand tightly in her own, closes the door behind her, and leads them out into the darkness of the Underground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where is he”, Kuchel snarls through bared teeth and it’s not a question. It’s a demand. The wires wrapped tightly in her fists—and even more tightly around her victim’s throat—don’t speak to her boundless reserves of patience.

 

“Where is he”, Kuchel snarls through bared teeth and it’s not a question. It’s a demand. The wires wrapped tightly in her fists—and even more tightly around her victim’s throat—don’t speak to her boundless reserves of patience. 

 

“Who wants to know?”, the grubby man tied to the chair says, and she slowly stretches her hands further apart. The garrotte tightens, and a droplet of blood wells around the wire. It beetles its way slowly down the grimy skin of the man’s throat and it’s probably the cleanest that skin’s been in weeks. She hates that Levi is being exposed to this, but he’s not safe anywhere but with her. She knows better than to trust anyone down here; she is not the biggest fish in these depths by far. 

 

She definitely knows better than to trust Kenny after all this time, but it’s not like she’s got an abundance of options, either. Blood is blood. He’d wanted to help her before, misguided as his offer had been. She’s got to believe that he’ll help her now. Desperation makes her hands steady, and her mind cold. She needs to find her brother or she and her son are going to die, and this piece of shit is in her way.

 

“Where is he? And don't try to bullshit me, understand? I’ll know.” 

 

“She will”, Levi pipes up, voice flat, and it makes her skin crawl. She thinks of Kenny, of the sweetness he’d been capable of, once upon a time. She thinks of herself, and knows any softness she had has long since rotted in the darkness of the Underground. She had hoped Levi would escape their family’s curse.

 

But it seems like Levi’s interjection is enough to startle the man into action. His eyes widen, as though seeing Levi for the first time, and he begins to struggle against the knots tying him down in earnest. Kuchel grieves; her son has her eyes, and she has Kenny’s—taking everything in and sharing nothing. 

 

She isn’t sure if her mark has guessed who they are or if he’s simply horrified at the thought of a child being present for this. It doesn’t matter. She knows he considers her a more serious threat now; a mother with a child to protect is a dangerous thing in her own right, but a mother willing to expose her son to torture is a lethal creature. Kuchel thinks of the man she’s already killed, a Military Police Captain with more skill in his little toe than this cretin has in his whole being. She thinks of how easy it had been, how pitiful his last moments. It feels like power, just like Kenny had told her, and it thrills her to the marrow even as it chills her to the bone.

 

She lets that power, that hunger, show in her eyes. Her companion swallows audibly. 

 

“Now”, she purrs, leaning in to the bound man’s face. “I hate repeating myself, so don’t make me do it again.” The man tenses, closes his eyes in the face of her intent. “Where’s the Ripper?” 

 

“Who the _fuck_ wants to know?”, the man spits through gritted teeth. Kuchel sighs. She’d hoped this would go easily, but when’s her life been so simple? She wonders what her brother’s been doing to inspire this degree of fear in his subordinates. And it is fear, she knows; loyalty only goes so far. Fear, on the other hand, cuts deeper than swords—and only fear would cause this man to face her wires rather than Kenny’s displeasure. 

 

“His sister”, Kuchel whispers in his ear, and smiles ghoulishly when the man wets himself. Levi crinkles his nose in disgust and shifts where he sits. “Ma”, he chirps, “the bad man made a mess.” Kuchel laughs, but it sounds cold to her ears. She wonders absently if the Underground incubated this ruthlessness in her, or if she’d come by it honestly. She wonders if Kenny knows. She’ll have to ask him once she tracks him down. Still, if she doesn’t focus now she’ll never find him and Levi will be left to grow alone in the dark like mold. She wants more for her son. She’d promised to keep him safe, and Kuchel Ackerman keeps her word. “Yes he did, little man”, she tells him sweetly, and if anything the man looks even more frightened. 

 

When they had been children, before she had fled underground to escape the men hunting them, Kenny and she had traced their reflections in their single mirror and marvelled at the similarities. In the splintered glass, their faces had seemed like two halves of a perfect whole, and she couldn’t tell where she ended and her twin had started. Time has changed many things, but she doubts the resemblance is one of them. 

 

So he’s frightened? Good.

 

“And he’ll make a bigger one if he doesn’t tell us where to find your Uncle Kenny”, she says conversationally, and tightens the wire further. The man gasps out something that might have been a prayer, but she pays it no heed. The blood is messy, but Kuchel is careful not to let it stain her new white trousers. She knows they’ve had worse things on them, but it’s the principle of the matter. 

 

She hopes she doesn’t have to make good on her threat, for Levi’s sake if not her own, but she doesn’t let it show. She fishes her little boning knife out of a hidden pocket in her stolen jacket with steady hands. She’s prepared to flay this man joint by joint to get to Kenny, but she’d rather it not come to such extreme measures. Levi watches with solemn eyes as she prowls around the man she’s tangled in her web. His stare seems to unnerve the man and Kuchel uses it to her advantage, even as it makes her feel like the worst sort of mother in the world. 

 

“What do you think your boss’ll do?”, she asks conversationally a little while later, “when I tell him that you didn’t tell his sister how to find him?” The man shudders in what Kuchel assumes is dread, although it might be a reflexive response to the pain of his flayed fingers. Either way, it elicits a grim smile from her, because it means she’s one step closer to getting what she wants. This is a war of attrition, after all: how far is she willing to drop in Levi’s esteem in order to keep him safe? This man is nothing but collateral damage, but she’ll get what she needs from him before she’s through. “Do you think he’ll _thank_ you? Don’t be so naive. You and I both know what he does to failures, and getting caught?” She clucks her tongue at him, and he shudders.

 

It doesn’t take long after that. 

 

“He’s not here!”, the man screams, and it’s the first crumbled brick in the wall of his silence. Kuchel digs her fingers in to the crack and digs. “Where is he?”, she asks. The man sobs through a bloody mouth filled with freshly broken teeth, and tells her. 

 

There’s a bitter irony to this, Kuchel thinks later, as she scrubs under her nails. 

 

She’d fled Underground to escape the Military Police, and killed a Military Police Captain to save Levi. Now she’ll trust her precious son to the most dangerous squadron of them all. 

 

She bundles Levi into the broken man’s hunter-green cloak for warmth, and tugs the hood over his head with a sad smile. “Levi”, she murmurs, stroking his cheek, and it feels like a benediction when he turns his face into the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that”, she tells him, and he nods. “I didn’t like it”, he says, and her gut clenches with guilt. “But I understand”, he adds, and Kuchel’s breath catches in her throat. “You had to do it”, Levi says, and she loves him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just sayin--if we think Mikasa's protective, imagine AckerMa.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a serious dearth of Kuchel and Ackerfam fic, but I'm a big believer in DIY. 
> 
> The [photoset](https://barelygiveaficaway.tumblr.com/post/154961678186/many-paths-kuchel-wonders-if-shes-making-a) for this is up on tumblr!


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